Whether the superheroine/villainess is a mutant, an Amazon princess or an alien humanoid, if she's female, she is straining against the bonds of gravity... but not in a flying sort of way.

This most common of metahuman attributes seems to range from a D-cup size upward for any character just past the onset of puberty (a time when many comic-book characters start to manifest superpowers). They are not only large, but remarkably self-supporting and perky for their size. This can be justified if their power set is such that the tendons supporting the breasts would be stronger or more elastic than normal.

Also, if one checks out the many "How To" books on comic book art, the average artist makes a point that American superheroes are drawn "larger than life". Heroes (and some villains) are supposed to look dynamic and impressive, so women are drawn with a dynamic and impressive bust. Another reason that superheroine cup sizes increased over the years is the larger roles the teen superhero achieved after the popularity of Spider-Man; a more "mature" body helps identify an adult heroine vs. a teen (compare Cloud-9 to the women in the trope image). Of course, many teen heroines exploit this trope nowadays as well.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Subverted in Tiger & Bunny. Blue Rose looks like she matches this trope at first, but then you look at her costume notes◊ and realize that her sponsors make her pad out her costume. After all, you can't market your superhero as a sexy dominatrix with just a B-cup, now can you?

Comic Books

The urban legend goes that legendary comics artist Wally Wood, one of the original artists for Power Girl at DC Comics, started enlarging her chest issue-to-issue to see how far he could go with it before the suits upstairs caught on. Again, this is just a myth; however, it started a tradition, and it's often considered one — er, two of the main features of the character, i.e. that she has even larger breasts than the average generously-endowed superheroine. Plus the "boob window" over her cleavage making them that much more obvious.

Many of the artists and writers over the past decade or so have had other characters point her figure out (such as in the preceding example), unlike other heroines in skintight and revealing clothing that other characters seemingly ignore. Even Power Girl is aware of her figure. She once commented that she doesn't need to wear a mask because "most of the time...they ain't lookin' at my face."

Some contemporary artists (from the last decade or so) also draw her as muscular, built like a body-builder. Adam Hughes, especially. He even drew a sketch of her lifting her own breasts for exercise in one of his convention sketchbooks.

As originally drawn in the 1940s, Wonder Woman had an average chest. Obviously, things have changed since then. Tellingly, she is described as canonicallythe most beautiful woman inThe DCU. All the beholders have the same tastes, then?

Black Canary once told Wonder Woman that the latter has "our community's second most famous bosom." The most famous one is Power Girl's. Hers are apparently practically considered a national treasure.

She-Hulk is on record as the single most buxom female character in the Marvel Universe while her powers are active, but when she's not "hulked out", her proportions are perfectly average. Her proportions have been lampshaded more than once.

In an issue of Gen13, when Grunge absorbed Caitlin's power, he also acquired her bust size. Apparently, boobs ARE part of her superpowers. In the post-Worldstorm version, she was explicitly genetically engineered for attractive appearance. Regardless of continuity, her large breasts were always the result of her powers. In her first appearance, she suddenly turns from mousy and slender to muscular and curvy when her powers activate. This is attributed to an increase in "muscle mass".

Subverted and lampshaded in the Capes backup of Invincible #27, wherein Knockout dons large prosthetic breasts while getting into costume. Her also superpowered boyfriend comments that he wished she "didn't have to wear those anymore," to which she replies that her salary has doubled since she started wearing them, and that "the world just doesn't want flat-chested superheroines." Parodied later in that same series. When Atom Eve rebuilds herself using her matter-manipulation powers, in the middle of a life-or-death fight, she takes the opportunity to make some "improvements" by upping her cup-size. "Subconsciously". She then passes out, and is quite surprised by her new figure when she wakes up in the hospital.

Knockout later gives up wearing the prosthetic breasts once she and Kid Thor join up with the Guardians of the Globe after Capes Inc. disbands, due to both being comfortable in her own skin, and having a government salary that is already generous enough as it is, and doesn't hinge on the size of her breasts, but on her abilities as a hero.

Spoofed when mousy archaeologist Nina Dowd is transformed into the super-villainess Mighty Endowed. Her breasts are literally super-powered (she can fire man-hypnotizing beams from them), but she quickly finds her chest is so big she can't stand up without help.

Likewise, when Arrowette is convinced that she's going to have to turn evil, one of her major concerns is the costume that goes with a lifetime of villainy.

Empowered: "'Racktastic'? Having allegedly large breastesses, that's not a superpower. Okay?" Ninjette: "Au contraire, Count Rackula. Believe me, I would so flaunt them if I had 'em." Empowered: "That I do believe, coming from someone with 'Ninjette' printed across the back of her shorts."

There's also a character called Jugganaut, whose power is implied to be related to her large breasts.

Ninjette actually cites this trope by name in vol. 7 when she and Emp make fun of themselves while wearing each others costumes.

Ninjette: And I'm a super-heroine tragically lacking the most common superpower for girlcapes! As in, well, boobs.

Lampshaded in one of the last Bloom County strips. Steve Dallas is showing Opus a comic book, and points out to him that "all the women look like Dolly Parton in zero gravity!"

Latex Red, a former member of the 3 Little Kittens team, had her breasts augmented to enormous size, considerably larger than her her head, in an attempt to out-do her former team mates. However she rapidly loses her balance and falls over a railing on her very first outing as a villain.

Lampshaded also in Outlaws case (issue #2 of Agent X) when Alex wakes up to her wig having fallen from the bedstand to his face which surprises him and he starts screaming

Alex:" A wig? * points to boobs* Are...are those real? "

Outlaw: "Well...hate to tell you this, cowboy, but..."

Alex:" AAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Outlaw:" What, did you reckon that they just grew all of us out on a perfect body farm somewhere?"

Alex:" Well, I just naturally assumed..."

One of the girlfriends of The Savage Dragon sees a photo of Dragon's deceased wife, the busty superheroine Smasher. She wonders out loud if her power was the power to defy gravity. Savage Dragon creator Erik Larsen flat out admits that he utilizes this trope. In fact, he lampshaded this with Earth Girl, a superheroine with ... um, great power who often finds herself the victim of a Wardrobe Malfunction.

In an issue of The Sandman, Barbi (an attractive woman who certainly has no reason for A-Cup Angst) describes going into a comic book store; the creepy clerk says "we don't usually see breasts as small as yours here", presumably because the only women ever seen in that store are on the pages of the comic books.

Lampshaded in Strikeforce: Morituri. First a female character celebrates that her enhancement process has given her a bigger bosom, and later other female characters are amused/skeeved by the size of the breasts they have been depicted with in the in-universe propaganda comics about them.

The eponymous Spider-Girl a.k.a. May "May Day" Parker doesn't have absolutely huge breasts but average-sized ones, despite her mother, MJ Watson, being rather gifted in that department, suggesting that this is partly down to the fact that she's still a teen. However, when two of her friends, who have no idea she is Spider-Girl, decide to draw an indie comic based on the heroine they ramp up her breast size — as well as change her outfit to be more revealing and to display a head of long blonde locks. May Day finds the entire thing silly.

Jules from Bazooka Jules is a teenager with a slender build but thanks to a micro-robotic weapon fusing with her body anytime she's in danger she transforms in an adult version of herself with extremely large breasts. When she asks her professor why activating her powers makes her breasts so big, he explains that the weapon automatically provides its user with physical enhancements and weapons its user wants for the situation. One of the enhancements Jules has been subconsciously commanding the weapon to get her is large breasts.

In Brian Tarsis' erotic graphic novel City of Dreams, when the heroine steps through the mirror into the fantasy world and becomes her alter ego, her first comment is "I am the Princess - look at these tits!"

Subverted in twoPS238strips. Villainess "The Kestrel" is blackmailed with medical pictures proving that hers aren't all-natural. She had it done because she's "got a mystique to maintain in this business." Beyond that, author/artist Aaron Williams rarely portrays any of his women with the Most Common Superpower. Especially Piffany, who is short and rather dumpy. The aversion in ''PS238 is justified in-universe by the fact that most of the superheroines in the comic are still prepubescent.

In the first issue of DC's New 52 Red Hood and the Outlaws, Red Hood has to break Arsenal/Speedy/Red Arrow out of a prison in a Middle Eastern country. While they're being chased, Arsenal asks if Hood brought any backup, and Hood replies, "38 of them." While Arsenal's still trying to figure that out, Starfire flies by and blows up a tank.

Lucy from Halloween Man, even more so since becoming plus-sized, which has given her the Most Common Super Power in spades due to Breast Expansion as well as becoming a BBW. A lot of this has been played for laughs, recently leading to a few My Eyes Are Up Here moments.

Lampshaded and subverted in Ms. Marvel (2014). Kamala Khan spent much of her life idolizing Carol Danvers and fantasized about looking as good as she does in Carol's most well-known outfit. When Kamala's Shapeshifting abilities first appear, she subconsciously forces herself to look somewhat like Carol, but quickly comes to realize that she doesn't have the body type, doesn't like the hair, and the outfit is uncomfortable. The outfit she comes up with later is far more modest.

MarvelMaster616's Marvel Universe fics attempt to justify it - apparently, the X-Gene attempts to compensate for its rarity by making its carriers more attractive (there is also a higher sex drive attached, which is why these fics are often Porn with Plot). One fic actually has Jean posing for a Playboy centerfold, and the playmate responsible for shooting asks outright who does her boobs - she cannot believe they're real.

Child of the Storm usually doesn't stray into this territory, sticking to more realistic body sizes, though Carol Danvers (much like her canon counterpart), has the sort of physique a co-ed would be proud of at 14/15, being somewhat more developed, which is - more and more these days - Truth in Television. Heftily deconstructed (much like many of the other tropes associated with both Harry Potter canon and Marvel canon), however, in how much unwanted attention this gets her from peers and grown men alike - also, regrettably, Truth in Television - meaning that she has very few genuine friends, and in any case, she's built in a fairly Amazonian fashion all around, so it's proportionate. With the subtle hints that she's related to Captain America, it could be that the super serum caused her to, ahem, develop earlier. In any case, no one dwells on it in any detail - Harry is uncomfortably aware that she's a very attractive young woman despite their Just Friends dynamic and occasionally gets a little hot and bothered about it, but since he's 13 going on 14 and she's one of the few attractive women of his acquaintance who doesn't actively treat him like a nephew/little brother, this is hardly surprising.

Diana during the temporary Plot-Relevant Age-Up. Though she is drop dead gorgeous and an Amazonian Beauty, there's a brief adjustment (literally and figuratively) scene for the group at large, in which she finds them rather uncomfortable, awkward and embarrassing. After that, they aren't mentioned again, with the narrative focused on the fight. Since before and after said age up she's a petite twelve year old on the cusp of adolescence, this discomfort is hardly surprising.

In Origin Story, Alex Harris is a clone of Power Girl, so naturally this trope applies. And they are remarked upon several times, not only by other people, but by Alex herself and (especially) Louise, Alex's girlfriend, who really, really appreciates them.

In My Super Ex-Girlfriend, the advent of G-Girl's metahuman abilities is heralded by an, er, expansion, of her bosom, followed by several other cosmetic changes. Which is a total Big Lipped Alligator Moment, as no one ever points this out and her breast expansion is never once mentioned in the entire film. As well as the fact that in every scene of her as an adult, G-Girl seems to be pretty average sized up top.

Zigzagged In Zsazsa Zaturnnah, in both movie and comic book versions. Zsazsa's boobs can fire lasers. This may or may not be a gag of people looking at women's breasts instead of their eyes.

Literature

Lampshaded in Perry Moore's Hero, where pyrokinetic Miss Scarlet says during an icebreaker that she grew up by a nuclear power plant and one day in her teens, she woke up with her flame powers and "a rack that would make Dolly Parton jealous."

Suzie Shooter in Nightside is quite female and from several descriptions, is... endowed with MCSP according to John Taylor's own internal dialogue.

John Taylor: "She wore two bandoliers of bullets across her impressive chest."

Lampshaded in Paths Not Taken, when Suzie, John and Tommy Oblivion all see Alternate Universe versions of themselves in Old Father Time's mirrors. On viewing themselves as superheroes, Suzie complains that she's never had breasts that big.

Ms. Fate, the Nightside's resident costumed superheroine, averts this trope because she's the crime-fighting alter-ego of a male transvestite. He does, however, include a high-grade set of falsies in his costume, the better to emulate this trope.

In Tales of an Mazing Girl one of Sarah's noticeable features. Justifed in that she's a larger woman, with fat over the rest of her body. Its pointed out that they tend to grow and shrink even with her yoyo-ing weight.

This trope is averted in Wearing the Cape. Hope/Astra, while a Flying Brick, describes herself as "built like an underage pixie" and has a stuffed bra built into her costume to make her look older. Elsewhere she comments that the practice of incorporating wonderbras into superheroine's costumes is almost universal.

Live Action TV

In Roseanne, Darlene makes David redraw their comic book to remove this superpower from all the female characters.

In The Big Bang Theory, Amy and Sheldon are at the comic book store when Stuart comes over to help:

Stuart: Can I help you?

Amy: Can you show me a female superhero who bosom couldn't be used as a flotation device?

Stuart: Sorry, most guys around here (indicates to the usual losers) like big boobs. Most of them have big boobs.

Hilariously lampshaded in Conan. He went with his graphic designer, Pierre Bernard, to the DC studios on the Dec 16, 2010 episode. Pierre showed his sketches of updating some DC women heroes. He showed drawings he did for Wonder Woman and Catwoman with ridiculously large breasts. The kicker was when he also produced a picture of Martha Kent, Superman's adopted mother, with abnormally large breasts. The sketches can be seen at Youtube [1]

Tabletop Games

Aberrant, part of the Trinity Universe, has a "Mega-Attribute" section of powers which are enhancements of the standard "attributes" that all characters have in the Storyteller system—strength, dexterity, and so forth. Although "Mega-Appearance" comes in many forms, the pic accompanying the section is of a woman with gigantic breasts being photographed by paparazzi. This is partially justified by the way that nova bodies tend to reshape themselves according to the subconscious desires of the nova upon eruption; thus, if a woman wants to be a big-boobed goddess, she gets to be a big-boobed goddess.

The cover of Mutants & Masterminds 3rd edition depicts a variety of male or gender-ambiguous supers note The one in powered armor and the bug-eyed alien are actually female, but you wouldn't know that from looking at them and one obvious female, "Princess", who is wearing a very tight, pink, midriff-bearing top that calls attention to her well-shaped bust (while it may not be all that large, it's certainly... pneumatic).

Video Games

In City of Heroes, there has been some complaint from female players that even the smallest bust option on females is at least a C-cup. It's annoying if you're trying to make—say, a realistically-proportioned speedster. It is possible to create the illusion of smaller breasts with judicious use of the waist, hips and physique sliders. And some clothing also tends to downplay them.

This is also true in Champions Online, which isn't surprising given the game was made by the same developers. And likewise, some clothing options make it easier to downplay it (or not) than others.

In Age of Mythology, Atalanta's breasts appear surprisingly prominent given her athletic inclinations. Forget Super Speed, her true power must be preventing those things from slapping her in the face.

Webcomics

Averted in M9 Girls!. The M9 Girl have pretty realistic and assorted body types: Clau is scrawny, and petite Karla is barely a B cup. Pato is buxom, but has a robust body to go with it. Only Any has a slender, curvy body, but it is mostly evident when she is in costume.

In Scott Kurtz's PvP, Jade complains that she can't make a super-heroine on NCSoft's City of HeroesMMORPG without producing an avatar with a back-breaking pair of breasts. When Brent and Francis explain that this condition fits the genre, Jade retaliates by naming her character the Titillator with the battle-cry macro, "Eyes up here!" On the other hand, she's got a decent pair herself, and her bustier sister Miranda uses hers as psychological weapons. After failing to manipulate a male character on one occasion, she looked down at her breasts and asked, "Are these on?" Brent once dreamed of Jade in a classic comic-book style - appropriately drawn by Frank Cho himself - and was awestruck with the results.

In Sidekicks all of the females introduced into the story (however briefly) are noticeably buxom except for Iblis, who seemingly makes up for it with her outfit, and Limpid, who is only a teenager (and could always grow into it). This is especially noticeable with Mybee, who seems to be around the same age as Limpid, yet is quite busty for her size.

Alternately parodied and embraced in Supermegatopia, especially by the characters of Buxom Gal, an explicit parody of Power Girl whose breasts expand as she absorbs energy and contract as she uses it, and Distraction Damsel, whose "super power" is to distract bad guys (and everyone else) with her assets and precisely-timed "wardrobe malfunctions".

Lampshaded by the newspapers of that world, who have offered a large reward for photos of Buxom Gal after more than a week of not using her powers. Sadly, the constant amount of supervillain attacks means she can barely go one day without expending her power.

Ellen from El Goonish Shive has this pretty literally: her "superpower" is to transform anyone into a beautiful, busty, long-haired girl. This is tied to the origin story that magically created her, so she's normally fairly well-endowed, although she can transform herself even further. Her own assets have occasionally been referred to as the "Wonder Twins" on this basis, both in comics and within fandom.

Tara: I have to ask, is there a combat advantage to having large mammaries, and if so, do I want to know what it is?

The whole premise of Sidekick Girl is that superheroes are chosen because they "look the part" and sidekicks are assigned on the basis of the heroes' needs. This leaves the intelligent and skillful but relatively plain Valerie as Hypercompetent Sidekick to a telegenic and curvaceous blond bombshell Brainless Beauty named Illumina, with a (highly inaccurate) reputation for getting a long string of sidekicks killed with her incompetence. Valerie was picked because she can't die — and that's it. No Healing Factor, no immunity to injury or pain. She just doesn't die from anything. She can suffer, though. Man, can she suffer.

Aubrey: Oh, I wanna be a superhero! All that power and might! The cool abilities and costumes! The shockingly perfect boobie-spheres that have their own unique center of gravity! Davan: I noticed fighting for truth and justice wasn't in that little wish list. Aubrey: Davan, super women have super boobies. Super boobies are a "get out of fighting for good" card in the Monopoly game that is our lives.

The titular character of The Challenges of Zona, and even more so the giantess Liri, who would be at least a DD if she was human. As Liri is around 15 feet tall, her breasts pretty much demand their own postal code.

For the titular superhero this appears to actually be part of her superpowers because the Freak Lab Accident that gives Heather super-powers changes her from modest to busty while toning her everywhere else.

Greta Gravity was a busty woman prior to gaining her gravity control powers which explain how she can, well, defy gravity.

Super Milf is a blatant lampoon of this trope as justified in her origin story. She was a scientist investigating the mysterious alien bio-reactors discovered by the military. The reactors suddenly went critical and a huge explosion ensued. Miraculously no one was killed, but the reactors somehow merged with her breasts, turning her into a very powerful and very busty superheroine. She claims that her costume's generous cleavage vents heat from the reactors in her breasts.

The Magnificent Milkmaid, Chocolate Milkmaid and the villainesses they fight. The Milkmaids' powers are that their breasts expand from about D cups to closer to triple-K cups when they drink milk, and they can use their jugs as weapons.

In Grrl Power protagonist Sydney Scoville, who works for a government agency mostly comprised of superheroines, is told that whatever causes supers to be super in the first place also gives them a Heroic Build, which means large breasts for women even though most superheroines don't have an ounce of fat anywhere else. Sydney, who has no superpowers of her own because her abilities come from a halo of orbs that act as a Green Lantern Ring consequently lacks the Most Common Superpower as well. She expresses some A-Cup Angst over her scrawny nerd girl appearance (particularly compared to the aptly-named Maxima) and is not amused when resident Badass Normal and fellow pettanko Peggy welcomes her to the "A team".

Cinna: Damn! Why do they have to be so heavy?! There’s no way the superheroines in those crappy comics can run around with those weights! [next panel] Geez, I'm starting to feel sorry for the real big-busted women.

The eponymous heroine of Redd isn't really a superhero, being a mere mortal with technology who's competing with them as her job, but she's naturally gifted with large breasts, and she and her Voice with an Internet Connection discuss how it really does fit the superhero tropes.

Played with in the online story Interviewing Leather: Leather is a supervillain who used to be a superhero. Amongst her reasons for her Face–Heel Turn is the fact that she didn't look like a superhero: she was only a B-cup and most heroines had at least double D's. "You know what they call it? Side Kick physique." Then again, she may be an Unreliable Narrator making excuses. Especially given that female supervillains are, if anything, even more inclined toward having supersized breasts and skimpy costumes that barely hide them.

Justified in the Whateley Universe, since the Exemplar power that a lot of these teenaged mutants possess reshapes their body image to what they subconsciously think it ought to be. With a few exceptions, a lot of these teenaged girls have huge tracts of land for their age, just as a lot of these teenaged boys look way too buff for growing high school boys. Phase has said that Mindbird and Attributes have some of the most "powerful" Most Common Super Power among the students, and her girlfriend Vox has that power too.

There's also the tidbit that most superheroines wear some sort of protective armor over the easily-hurt parts. Phase has kinetic gel protection in her supersuit, and she hates that it makes her even more endowed.

Lampshaded, by name, by Jadis Diabolik, who doesn't have this despite being an Exemplar, and isn't very happy about it.

Done (but certainly no more or less justified than in any other instance) in Pokegirls, in which the female monsters were created by the Big BadMad ScientistSukebe, who made the majority of them very well endowed.

Given that the Global Guardians PBEM Universe is a superhero setting, this was pretty common. Nearly every female character was explicitly described as being "top heavy". As long-time player China Pettinger once put it, "I'd rather have my characters be stunningly attractive and sexy than lucky or powerful."

Winked at in this short story, when the superheroine's boyfriend notes that her action figures "look like someone has gone at her strategically with a large vise and an air pump" despite her modest actual figure. He blames marketing.

In Brennus, much as in the Whateley Universe, the Adonis expression of the Physique power reshapes people according to their perception of attractiveness. It's also literally the Most Common Superpower in the setting, as it often comes as a sub-power.

Western Animation

Lampshaded not so discretely in Justice League when Wonder Woman went to visit Hephaestus, a Greek god who had designed her armor. He notes that he created it originally for her mother, who doesn't quite have her... um... build, and offered to take it out a little sometime.

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